Book Review: Studs Terkel, Touch and Go

Studs Terkel – Touch and Go. A Memoir (The New Press)

Studs's life is made of stories, each sprouting a hundred offspring, each character in an anecdote hinting at dozens of others of whom there simply isn't time to tell. Who is Studs? He is a petulant optimist, a lifelong radical, and I have always admired him for his gentle touch. He admires the dignity of British journalist James Cameron for having restraint he wishes he had himself. Studs holds back when it is necessary, other times he writes angry letters, once calling the book editor of a major magazine 'a craven toady', which makes me feel like less of a failure.

He started listening to people in the lobby of the Chicago hotel run by his parents, learned about the world from honest working people and gangsters and their molls. Studs was on television when it was first born, and he's spent much of his life on radio, inviting people to tell their own stories, his voice in silhouette. And even in this, his memoir, it's mostly about other people. He doesn't need to be the star of his own show.

He speaks of names you know, and names you don't know, of whom he speaks with an affection that makes you wonder why you haven't heard of them before. People like Virginia Durr, who stood up to a 300-pound senator who'd hauled her before a Mississippi Senate committee on Un-American activities. She sat in the witness chair, quietly powdering her nose. When asked why she defied him, she said, “I guess I'm just a good old Southern snob.”

Studs did his part. When he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, he sat in his apartment reading, listening to records. When the FBI would arrive, he'd invite them in, offer shots of bourbon or vodka, “making it quite clear it was domestic”. Sometimes he read to them. His politeness eventually drove them away. When he was called in by an employer who questioned why he'd signed petitions for civil rights and against Fascism, and reminded that these were 'Communist' fronts, Studs said, “Suppose Communists come out against cancer? Do we automatically come out for cancer?” He was sacked. He did it before the Daily Show, before The Colbert Report, when it was still dangerous. It's not all about McCarthyism, but that his belief in humanity has always been subversive should worry us as much as it should make us hopeful.

Maybe I'm being flippant – I know I am – but there's a reason Hemingway, Hunter S., and other cynics couldn't go on, and Studs can. One of his recent books of interviews is called Hope Dies Last -- that's why. To call him a hero would be missing the point of Studs entirely, but I can't help myself. See? No restraint.